


Tainted Meat

by lynndyre



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Community: bloodyvalentine, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Vomiting, unwitting cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the road between Helm's Deep and Isengard, mistakes are made with supplies.</p>
<p>For the BloodyValentine prompt: <i> someone feeds orc food to an elf, making them really sick.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tainted Meat

Gimli filled his and Legolas’ bowls from one of the Rohirrim stewpots, and brought them back to where Legolas had laid their packs. His spoon had lost itself in the few items his pack still held, and after he counted himself lucky for it. For when he turned, Legolas had gone dead white around his mouthful of stew.

The Elf spat into his hand, and regarded it with horror before upending the entire bowl onto the ground. Without a word, he took Gimli’s bowl and treated it in likewise fashion.

Gimli stilled, for the glitter in the Elf’s eyes held something dangerous. “Legolas?”

“Whence. Came. That.”

“From the horsemen’s cookfire, there.” Rarely indeed had he ever seen his friend’s face so fell. “What is wrong? Though I begin to think I will mislike the answer.”

“That was not made from any food of Men.” The elf used a handful of grasses to scrub at his palm. “ _Yrch_.”

Gimli had never heard the Sindarin word sound so much like a retch.

He followed as Legolas strode to the cooktent. The elf did not speak, went straight for the tent, pulling bags from the dried stores, before exclaiming in anger, and flinging the entire bag into the fire. Another followed, and Legolas pulled the heavy cookpot from its stand barehanded, tipping it onto its side heedless of flames or the heat of the metal. 

The cook leapt up, shouting, and many of the Rohirrim moved likewise. Gimli planted himself squarely between the Elf and the Men, and hooked his thumb in his wide belt, beside his axe.

The cook offered Legolas angry remonstration, but Legolas would hear none of it. “By what false economy do you justify this? That you would draw from the stores of the enemy? Better to go without meat – better to go without food!”

“Supplies are supplies! We are not so precious as elves, to discard—“

Raised, Legolas’ elven voice cut through the noise of a score of Men. “Do you know whence orc-meat _comes_? You feed these men their kin!”

The cook fell silent, eyes wide, as the Rohirrim cried out in horror. Yet as the flush of anger faded from Legolas’ cheeks, Gimli saw saw him lose all color entirely, and Gimli followed as his friend retreated from the melee of Men and then fled to the edge of the camp.

Legolas had eaten little enough through the day, but as Gimli caught him up in the darkness, the Elf’s stomach worked like a cat’s to rid itself of its meager contents. A handful of weeks ago, Gimli might have been pleased to find proof of any imperfection. Now he gathered back the dark hair, and laid a hand between the Elf’s shoulders.

“I am sorry indeed for bringing you such an offering.” 

Legolas shook his head, but heaved again, dryly, when he tried to speak. Instead he caught Gimli’s wrist, and clasped his fingers in forgiveness. The Elf’s hand was cold; Gimli stayed beside him, and warmed it between his own. In the fine tremors that traced his taught limbs, Legolas seemed less some starry Eldar and more a wounded half-wild creature.

“Sit for a spell. I will bring water.” Gimli gave Legolas’ shoulder one last pat, and ventured back into the camp. The cauldron lay still overturned, and he could hear Eomer and Gamling corralling the Men. He left him too it, and took care where he trod. Enough light carried to see that many of the stomachs of the Rohirrim had been taken even as Legolas’ had. 

At their packs, he found the water, then patted down his pockets, and slipped one more packet into his shirt. Their bowls he would cleanse later, first with grass then a careful application of fire.

Between the camp and the sentry line, Legolas had been sick again. His complexion was hard to make out, so far from the lights, but his eyes were strange and bright under hooded lids. He blinked, and was familiar again, only tired and ill. Gimli crouched beside him, and offered the waterskin.

“Eomer has taken things in hand.”

“That is well.” He drank slowly, and they watched the camp as the Men went to and fro. “Aragorn?”

“Is with the king, and will likely hear of this later. It did not seem other supplies were tainted.”

Gimli heard the hitch in Legolas’ breathing, and the Elf pressed a hand to his face, then leaned away from Gimli into the darkness and lost the water he’d taken. 

He was panting, who Gimli had seen emerge from full battle with steady breath, and curled around his middle as though it pained him. Gimli pulled the leaf-wrapped wafer from his shirt, and offered it when Legolas had recovered himself.

“Would this help?”

Legolas accepted it wordlessly, and when he peeled away the outer leaf, the scent of winter under silver trees rose up to wash away, for that single moment, the smell of grassland, and men and horses and illness. Legolas broke off only a small corner, and Gimli saw that he held it under his tongue without swallowing.

In the camp, the Rohirrim began to seek their bedrolls, and the fires burned lower. Gimli wished for his pipe, and absently chewed the end of a strand of grass. And he watched vitality return to his friend, crumb by crumb.


End file.
